Two Short Thoughts on Love

1) I woke up this morning with the following thought:

I imagine that when God introduces his children he has special names for them. I can see him saying, "Over here is my daughter, Loved. Oh, and I want you to meet my son, My Pride. And over there my daughter, Cherished. And have you met Loved-with-Much-Laughter?"

2) This is something I wrote in my journal several months ago:

I'm loved into humility. I stop fighting for self-respect, my way, and my opinion when I come to find that love has surrounded and conquered my bruised and defensive ego.

Donnicate

I've been listening to a Chris Rice CD that I got for Christmas and there is this line where he says, "I'll donnicate and fly to your rescue." I was intrigued by this line. What the heck did donnicate mean? I relished the Latinesque sound of the word and imagined that since the author was saying he would fly to someones rescue then donnicate must be some kind of transmogrification. I thought about how to donnicate must be a real sacrifice for love (wow, to morph yourself for love!). Finally, I read the lyrics to the song. The lyrics actually go, "I'll don a cape and fly to your rescue." I liked my explanation so much better.*

The lyrics to the song I was confused about:

Love, how did I find you?
Was I even breathing before I knew your name?
Who could ever have planned this?
Arranged a whole planet to all turn out this way.
Hey, only Heaven knows
The dreams behind these things I'm asking
Even our angels look surprised
To bump their wings in passing
.........................
Hey, only Heaven saw
The tears I cried
On the day I met you
If the whole world goes wrong
I'll don a cape
And fly to your rescue.

Chris Rice, Let the Words Escape



*This is a paragraph out of an email I sent to Marlise. It felt bloggish so I decided to post it here too. I hope you don't mind Marlise!

Imprecations

Imprecations. I'm mostly writing this because I want to use the word imprecations. I learned about imprecations before I knew there was a word for it. I was an innocent middle schooler reading through the Bible when I came across the following text:

"Oh Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us--he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks" (Psalms 137:8).

Gulp. That was in the Bible? Infant dashing? I asked my dad about it. He said that just because someone prayed something it didn't mean that God approved of the prayer. He said, "they used human language."

I never really had a desire to pray an imprecatory prayer (a prayer to curse) until just a couple of years ago. The cyclone had just come through Myanmar and the junta did not initially let in any aid workers for fear of political instability. I was furious. And so I prayed my first imprecatory prayer. "Lord," my prayer went, "let the political leaders die. If it takes their death for help to come to their people then let them die."

This week I wanted to pray an imprecactory prayer once more. It happened like this: my co-worker's 83 year old father, who lives in Puerto Rico, was asked to help a couple. He obliged and as he was helping them they turned on him and told him 1) how much money he had in the bank 2) if he refused to give them all that was in the bank they would kill his family. He believed them. So he went into the bank and took out 20,000 dollars and gave it to them. There. What was left of his life savings--gone. (He was fortunate to have just bought a house in cash.)

I was furious when I heard this. I thought of the years he spent saving his money. I thought about how he doesn't have a job to bring in more income (though he does have a good family and a small stipend) and I thought about people who would be so heartless as to steal from an 83 year old man.

While I didn't have the courage to pray for their deaths, I did pray that justice would find them swiftly and painfully! Imprecations!

There is a time to curse in prayer. There is a time to pray for God's wrath to come. The Old Testament prophets were often impatient with how long justice took to come. I hope for the same impatience.

Imprecations. For all that is evil, for all that dulls the heart, for all the breaks the human spirit--let there be curses!

Ask, seek, knock.

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday
at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory

If holiness is the renunciation of desire, than I'm not holy. I often pray for more desire. I pray for God to sharpen my desires. It seems a strange thing to pray. Especially since I constantly strive to keep all of my appetites under control. I know from experience that desires left untended can ransack my life.

Despite the dangers of desires, I pray for God to sharpen my desires because he asks me to ask. He said, "Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened for you." How can I ask, seek, and knock if I have no desire? How can I begin to pray if I just sit on my hands and hope that something good will come of the little things I want out of my life? How many times has my attitude been "No. No. God, I don't ask too much. I would hate to inconvenience you--just give me something small and I'll be satisfied."

Could that attitude be offensive to God? Could my lack of desire reflect on my view of His character? If I believe that God is a generous God, then shouldn't I be in the business of showing that I trust his generosity?

Lord, I want to ask. I want to seek. I want knock and knock some more. Give me the desire to desire. Give me the yearning to yearn. Give me the passion I need to seek the good in life. And in seeking the good in life may I find You.

Shimmering Lights

For shimmering lights on lakes,
For clouds against the sky,
For quiet moments on busy days,

Thank you.